Selling The Farm

In the Why Not department, one can ask, why not make old folks' homes, farms? Some of my favorite recollections were holiday times on The Farm. The Farm was where my grandparents lived in Maple Ridge. In those days, it was called Haney. When I grow old enough to need a "home", I would love it to be a kind of farm. I don't mind living farther away from malls and hospitals and city parks. With transportation these days, no one in a rural area is very far from those so-called amenities. Give me The Farm again. I don't mind waking to the crowing of a rooster or the mooing of a cow. Going out to collect warm eggs from under a hen would be a pleasure, even if it were in a wheel chair or a walker. Watching or participating in morning cow milking with a little squirted at the barn cats, would be a delight to see. Watching breakfast being made in front of my eyes and those of my fellows, seeing fresh baked loaves taken out of the oven and pie crust rolled and filled before me, would inspire tears of joy in the memories of my little pioneer grandmother's busy hands. Rather than sitting at a table for four in a "home" no matter how cute and pretty it is, is simply not the same as seated at a long table covered in oil cloth with simple bowls and plates sans the fancy napkins, tablecloths or horrors, the tacky bibs! I care not for gazebos and tidy banks of roses and geraniums and trimmed hedges and groomed grass. Give me a verandah that overlooks a vegetable garden surrounded by an old wood fence with climbing beans and peas and a yard dotted with fruit trees of hanging apples or pears or cherries to pick at will. To smell hay or fruit tree blossoms or even the barnyard would be heavenly. Sitting on a bench next to a field of grazing cows or sheep or goats or horses, is the best relaxer there is; better than your spas and physio therapies and oxygen tanks and pills. Someone someday will get wise to constructing a farm setting for old folks, a place that you could not only enjoy being in, but also partaking in. Elders, even those with certain unfriendly situations, can help prepare meals, fold laundry or do some gardening if the beds are raised. Helping oneself and others is far more appealing and constructive than crafts classes and counselling. When a monthly stay in a "home" costs in the neighbourhood of five thousand or more dollars, it seems to me, changes of this nature would not only be cheaper, but also be much more conducive to longer lives, and to peace and enjoyment during one's final years. Why not?